Tag: Eric Garner

“This year’s celebration, themed “Justice Or Else,” will be led by the Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan and put a laser focus on the tragedies that have crippled urban communities around the country, from the Michael Brown shooting in Ferguson to the slaying of Eric Garner in New York City.”

“Today, October 10th, hundreds of thousands of activists, Muslims, Christians, music artists and much more convene in Washington D.C. on the National Mall to commemorate the 20th anniversary of the Million Man March.”

I’ll never forget the day this album dropped. I was in another dimension. I was inspired.

This album performed well. Its critics are caught in a web of infinite skepticism.

I bought this album and Yeezus on the same day. I believe these are probably the two greatest artists of our time. If you pay attention, I have been influenced by them in all of my work.

The political undertones in this work, like all of Jay-Z’s works, are omnipresent. The cover itself, inspired by greco-roman mythology, the inner-booklet, as well as the content, from beginning to end, captures the stark reality of an American hustler. The whole time I felt I was watching a Spike Lee movie.

Jay-Z is hated for his business approach. I think he is an artistic genius. His genius is beyond the minds of his critics, be they musicians or not. He addresses conspiracy theorists in a line from “Heaven”:

Conspiracy theorists screaming illuminati,

They can’t believe this much skill is in a human body,

6’2, how the fuck he fit in a new bugatti,

Aw fuck it you got me,

Question religion question it all,

Question existence until them questions are solved,

Meanwhile this heretic, I be out in Marrakesh,

Morocco, smoking hashish with my fellowship,

Y’all dwell on devil shit, I’m in diablo, yellow-shit,

Color of jello shit, hello bitch,

It’s me again, fresh in my easter clothes feeling like Jesus.

For all the so-called purists & the conspiracy theorists, this is a clear message. Jay-Z isn’t here to make you comfortable. He is here to make a living, express himself & expose what he sees as American hypocrisy. With references to Malcolm, Martin Luther King Jr., Wall Street, Jewish affluence and more, this album in no way falls short of being consistent with the tradition of hip-hop as a conscious movement.

Despite ongoing trends & exploitations of the culture, for the most part, there remains a largely alive movement of conscious listeners and artists who remain true to the craft and the messages upon which it was built.

It cannot be understated the impact which 200 years of slavery has had on the African-American culture. This recent interview with Azealia Banks on Hot 97 really captures the emotions of the African-American community. Whether or not you agree with her views or self-expression, I do believe it is important for Americans especially, to hear this perspective. It is true, that Abraham Lincoln emancipated the slaves in the 19th century. But that was the end of a tactic; not of a system. The system which we would like to believe no longer exists today is strong and more alive than ever. Words alone, especially my own, cannot do justice.

Today, hip-hop is saturated with a blend of either ultra-conscious underground or ultra-materialistic mainstream. The medium is there, if you look for it. The majority, which represents the American population, remains held hostage to either the purists within the underground community or the bigots who have largely extended their grasp over the popular media-mainstream, exponentially since the deaths of major hip-hop icons Notorious B.I.G. & Tupac.

I am all for new music & innovation. But I tend not to look for it from many of the artists who the mass-media spoon-feeds us on the daily. I like sticking to my real hip-hop.

Recent tension between hip-hop artists Azealia Banks and Iggy Azalea inspired me to address the issue, and how the undertones resonate loudly in America, with associations to systems of cultural repression such as racism, jim crow, the prison-industrial complex, corporate hoarding and finally US foreign policy; and ultimately how all of these issues are in actuality the products of one giant injustice; institutionalized discrimination.

Liberty and individualism are often associated with the American conservative model of capitalism but in reality this model more closely resembles theocratic-nepotism. True free markets, competition and prosperity are more closely associated with genuine democracy and social redistribution of resources in order to correct historical injustices and imbalances as well as to assure that the basic needs of individuals are met as they seek to establish a method for sustenance by relying on themselves.

The reality is that America’s brand of capitalism, especially as it has unfolded in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, is less capitalism-based and more authoritarian; more Randian, if anything.

The system which disenfranchised African-Americans is responsible for propping up images like Iggy. That system I refer to is a cult-like religion of people who believe in a disney-esque fairy tale-like America where innocence remains and hypocrisy is rampant.

First, Israel is already a Jewish state, and second, from the perspective of its Arab citizens, it’s a state that’s already seen as a preferential rather than full democracy. And passage of this gratuitous and provocative new law will only widen the growing and still irreconcilable gap between the two.

But now in the highly charged world of Israel’s political right, it’s made its biggest advances to date in the effort to enshrine Israel’s Jewish identity, as one of its Basic Laws that provide the foundation for the country’s legal and political system in the absence of a formal constitution, which Israel does not have. The bill’s defenders (among them Israeli Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu) maintain that it states the obvious, is long overdue, and is also essential to making clear to the Arab world (and the Palestinians in particular) that there can be no right of return for Palestinians into Israel proper.

“The natural and best way is for the ‘national’ character of a state to be ensured by the very fact that it has a particular majority.” And, as if taking its cue from the Zionist leader, that’s just what the Israelis have done.

It’s a Jewish state not just through declarations but through deeds as well. History, tradition, law, symbols, and practice anchor Israel’s Jewish nation-state identity through its ancient biblical connections; centuries of exilotic longing; a Law of Return; a national anthem that puts a return to Jewish Zion upfront; a flag that depicts a Jewish prayer shawl and star of David; a Hebrew language unique to only one nation-state; and, above all, as Jabotinsky had hoped, a population of 8 million, 6 million-plus of whom are Jews. It’s hard to believe that despite the secular character of Israel that aliens arriving in Tel Aviv wouldn’t quickly realize that they had landed in a distinct nation-state run by Jewish Israelis.

And yet a series of laws (most notably the Law of Return and the 1952 Citizenship Law) explicitly favor Israeli Jews. Other administrative rules and regulations give preference to Jewish and Zionist organizations in matters relating to access to land and housing. Then there is systemic, institutional, and societal discrimination that simply does not ensureequal allocation of state budgets and symmetrical benefits to Arab and Jewish communities. The clear absence of a shared public square where Israeli Jews and Arabs can participate equally and take pride in the symbols of the state — national anthem, flag, state holidays — can only reinforce a sense of isolation and separation. That Israeli Arabs may well enjoy more rights than citizens of many Arab countries and would likely not choose to live elsewhere, including in a putative state of Palestine on the West Bank and Gaza, are often arguments used to rationalize their second-class status. But these arguments really don’t work. If you are a real democracy then you make a determined commitment to try to be one, and that means doing everything possible to ensure that all citizens of the stare are treated equally in a de jure and de facto manner too.

1. Either democracy is the enemy in the sense that it is, like communism, and other collective ideologies, a method of propagating fears to suppress individual innovation, self-faith, God, diversity and success out of envy and self-asceticism.

2. Perhaps the issue is gerrymandering or manufacturing of facts, by battling democracy through republican-esque funding and manufacturing consent.

3. Israel never intent on being a democracy and can’t be do to religious and exclusive foundation thus rendering it incompatible with modern institutions and international peace. Apartheid, not democracy.

4. Keep in mind total population of Palestinians in the world outnumbers the total number of Israelis: 11 million Palestinians to approximately 9 million Israelis. (If we want to count Jews then we ought to count Muslims, which would be no comparison). Obviously, the Palestinians are not in Israel and the majority have left Palestine due to the occupation; but this diaspora of refugees would not exist if Israel wasn’t there. Democracy, or apartheid?

“Israel is a relatively young country. If you looked at the United States in 1830, roughly 60 years after independence, you would have found a nation where women couldn’t vote (and many white males, too), blacks were slaves, and native Americans’ lands were seized and tribes forcibly relocated. In a way, Israel’s situation was much closer to America’s in the 1950s, when millions of African-Americans suffered de facto and de jure discrimination. So it’s critically important to give maturing democracies an opportunity to deal with inequalities and discriminatory policies. After all, it took America a full century and half, a civil war, and a bitterly contested civil rights movement to reconcile the promise contained in the Declaration of Independence with the reality that our Constitution validated chattel slavery. And by the looks of Ferguson, Missouri, we still have a ways to go before eliminating the patterns of racial discrimination in our system.”

The term Republican means to believe that certain individuals are more fit to govern society than others, which is why you often hear right-wingers give you the WE ARE NOT A DEMOCRACY WE ARE A REPUBLIC narrative. Enough said. Conservatives, religious and irreligious extremists, from communists to zionists, have nothing fruitful to rely on for sustainment because they do not trust in themselves. Their self-loathing has forced them to rely on state institutions and religious theocracy to promote their backwards way of thinking. An entire country was carved out of Palestine for Israelis because they need a collective institution that supports their egoism and ethnocentrism and lack of self-sustainment. Zionism is the antithesis of freedom, free markets and free thought. DEAR CONSERVATIVES – you don’t believe in freedom, capitalism or free trade. Your currency is extremism and your support system is fascist authoritarianism. Enough depriving others of freedom just to suit your ascetic, self-loathing, hateful worldview.

And I can’t wait for these next 6 years to watch Republicans prove themselves incompetent once more because the fuck-ups of Nixon, Bush I, Reagan & Bush II weren’t enough to convince Americans. Still a vast majority of Americans, most likely white, identify with Republicanism, conservatism, and christian zionism. The zealotry with which Bush invaded Iraq under the banner of Christian revivalism and democratic-crusadership almost mimics the imperial establishment and continued expansion of the theocracy of Israel, also under the banner of zionism.

They say robust capitalism is the greatest system in our world because it maximizes the benefits of all men in any given society.

This perspective is especially true of the American narrative we are ‘indoctrinated’ into through our public and private institutions.

As an immigrant to this country, I must say, however I am profoundly disappointed.

I came to this country at the age of 6, leaving my homeland, the Middle East.

Both of my parents are Syrian, born and raised in Damascus all of their lives.

I am a proud Syrian.

Deep down, I also want to say that I am a proud Syrian-American, but this country has caused me some pain. Bigotry has caused not only me but much of the world its miseries.

Global misery stems from one over-arching concept: we are all currently suffering from American fascist ideology; unfettered exceptionalism. Manifested, it is in actuality state-capitalism.

Just like China & Russia, the supposed crown-jewels of communism, America uses its ideology as a method of coercion, manipulating capitalism into a dangerous form of Christian-Fascism, in which citizens/constituents are subjugated to a pseudo-democratic system of law that ignores history, statistic & common humanity.

While deep down, I do have much love for this country, or at least, the philosophy for which it attempted to stand, it is without a doubt that a certain religious fascism has crept in, with roots deeply embedded in christian evangelism and zionism. It has left vast communities disenfranchised, ostracized and socio-economically deprived.

I came to this country as an immigrant – and this country made sure to hang that label as an emblem of my un-americaness over my head until my demise.

Obama is trying to fight for immigrants, but the fight is against the same aforementioned ideology embraced by so many Americans: bigotry.

I was forced out of my job nearly a year ago, which left me struggling to make sense of my socio-economic situation. I worked for four years with my last employer before losing the position due to pressure from Republicans to discourage immigration reform and immigration altogether.

But what Republicans don’t understand is that it is precisely the policies of Republicanism which have been implemented on and off by various American officials throughout our short history that have impoverished and completely desecrated other nations and communities. This can be exhibited at one of the peaks of America’s imperial series’ – in South America. Aiding rebels in Nicaragua and overthrowing democratically elected leaders in Chile – how does America not expect an influx of immigrants to the world’s most spiritually and economically promising nations?

How did America become so promising? And why is the rest of the world not?

Generally speaking, in the 21st century, when we refer to prosperous countries, if it isn’t America we mention it is any one of the leading european powers, such as the UK, France & Germany.

America, the crown-jewel of modern christian evangelism, would have you believe in a linear history which places the breakthrough of western democracy in the 18th century as the standard model of global justice.

The ensuing years would prove that the democratic revolutions of other nations would soon be under attack by the vary nation that is supposed to be the ideals’ founding progenitor.

In 1952, Iran’s democratically elected leader, Prime Minister Mossadegh, was overthrown in a covert CIA mission because his policies we deemed a threat to ‘global security’ and the ‘western model for global justice’ and in other words, ‘western capitalism’ (Kinzer, All the Shah’s Men).

But the reality is that the west, as exhibited by their behavior, does not embody the capitalism is touts. Once competitors begin exposing Christian Fascism – they are immediately disenfranchised. Mossadegh of Iran was among those casualties.

America still thinks it is the unbridled hero of the 20th century for bringing an end to state-communism, but the reality is there is a monster hiding in the backyard of America’s philosophical stronghold – Christian Fascism. As the USSR raped the world with collectivist propaganda under the umbrella of communism, the USA put a pill in the drinks of all vulnerable nations under the banner of being the holy arbiters of earth and the rightfully chosen wielders of power and governance.

One man who quickly learned of the USA’s treachery to genuine human rights was a man who himself was conflicted about the definition of human rights himself – Osama bin Laden. Bin Laden, originally an ally of the US, was propped up against the USSR under the banner of Wahhabist Islam and the fight against the political atheism of the east. He soon learned that once the specter of communism was defeated, he would have another enemy – his own friend: the U.S.A. Osama bin Laden may have thought he was fighting for freedom, but he was indeed carrying out the agenda of Christian Fascism – the anti-freedom, imperialist agenda of the West – to stifle communism and other threats to their power. Perhaps it was Osama’s own twisted conception of what constituted a just society that made him vulnerable to American cunning and deception. His foolishness and immoral intent threw him right into the hands of Western deviousness.

Their greatest allies are their purported enemies: Osama bin Laden, the Muslim Brotherhood, Communism. These are their tools for constant hegemony . The tactic is to constantly generate new enemies and threats that require retaliation and response, thereby justifying foreign escapades and the usurping of foreign resources, aka colonialism/imperialism.

It is this very system that initiated the trans-atlantic slave trade, which has repercussions not only felt today but even unknown. African-Americans suffered the most due to the institutionalization of christian fascism, manifested through segregation and racism. Today, we see the repercussions on a daily basis every time a clearly culpable white police officer shoots and kills an innocent black male. We see it in the way the media portrays the African-American culture, the way in which bias is propagated in order to protect the problems in our institutions.

As an immigrant who is still struggling to obtain ‘normal’ access to America’s abundance, I must say I am very disappointed with the way it has gone. I still support Obama’s initiative, but let it be known that the underlying problem is much much greater. America’s demons are coming back to haunt it every day, as reminder of the crimes it has committed against other nations throughout history.

Will things change? Perhaps. Perhaps not entirely; perhaps not perfectly; perhaps not at all. There is much at stake – one particular issue at stake being the potential humiliation of western christian fascist culture which has had this country in its grip for some time now.

It all starts with knowledge.

Keep in mind, the motive of all action is belief (ethic/religion), which forms ideology, which then manifests itself as a political ideology. If that is understood, it can also be understood that the source of the problem is that an un-ethical belief has a tight grip on America. Once Americans embrace a universal ethical system, the unjust facets of the law may lose ground.